Berry Timtam Crush Recipe – Food Friday

Woohoo the return of Food Friday! It’s been quite a while, mostly because I haven’t been well organised. You’ll be surprised to know that I didn’t stop eating for these last few months, I only stopped remembering to charge my camera when I did so no photos 😉

Hopefully this will make up for it though, it’s my current favorite dessert (and sometimes breakfast) the Timtam Berry Crush. I’m very sad that the rest of the world doesn’t have Timtams, I know the UK has Penguins but they’re not quite the same thing (not better or worse just not the same). The wikipedia page has their availability in other countries if you want to try to hunt some down! It’s totally worth it even if they’re a bit pricey. Random tivia: Timtams are one of few “Australian” things I actually like!

And this is what I’ve been doing with mine recently:
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You need:

  • 2 Timtams
  • Blueberries
  • Strawberries
  • Thickened cream (heavy cream/whatever the type of cream you generally eat with cake is called in your country, something with at least 35%+ fat)
  • Sprinkles
  • Fruitcake (not really needed but I had some spare to use up)

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Now I see a lot of people making these fancy looking desserts in fancy looking wine glasses etc. I love how pretty they look but I also hate eating out of them because it’s hard to get the last bits out and the ones we have are small compared to regular glasses so I say screw prettiness, go with the biggest cup you have >:D

Left: Very pretty. Right: Realistic of how much I want to eat chocolate.

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So this is the simplest concept ever: layering!

Stick a spoon full of fruitcake in the glass and pour a spoon of cream on it. If you’re not using fruitcake you can substitute with regular sponge cake or more chocolate biscuits.

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Add some blueberries and chopped strawberries.

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Roughly chop the Timtams and add some.

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More cream!

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Continue layering deliciousness until you get to the top.

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Lastly add the sprinkles and enjoy!

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eat while watching crappy movies or playing video games.

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Took around 5 min to make and as the cream melts into the Timtams it forms the most delicious mush in the universe. *craving again*

Food Friday is as healthy as ever 😉 Next week I’m going to share my budget recipes, money is tight here at the moment so we’ve been cooking frugally. Sometimes the best comfort food recipes are the cheapest! ^_^

Best Jam Drop Cookie Recipe – Food Friday

I’m pretty sure it’s still Friday somewhere in the world right? Planning fail again XD One of these days I’ll get myself properly organised!

So today’s Food Friday is  James’ Jam Drop recipe which I will steal and claim as my own >:D Mine didn’t actually turn out half as nice as his but oh well!

You need:

  • 130g butter, softened
  • 112g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 tablespoons cornflour
  • 3 tablespoons self-raising flour
  • 150g (1 cup) plain flour
  • Jam for filling and then any decorations you want
Get all of your ingredients together!
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Stick the butter in a mixing bowl.
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Add the suger and vanilla essence.
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Have an argument with your boyfriend over whether a couple of grams extra will *really* ruin the entire batch of cookies… Seriously James is ridiculously particular with his measuring.
Try not to stab him with your butter knife when he insists on spending 20min finding new batteries for his electric scale to get the measurements perfect.

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Whip it with an electric beater until it starts getting fluffy and the butter gets a little lighter.

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Add in the egg…

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And the food colouring…

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Whip it again and until it’s fairly fluffy.

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The recipe here differs depending on who you are…

If you are James then: take forever finding a clean bowl and sift all the flours together making sure to mix thoroughly. Add it to the cookie mixture and mix until it forms a dough.

If you are Violet: get bored looking for a clean bowl and start dumping the flours into the current bowl, sifting is for suckers and people who don’t want to get some crafting done tonight too! Finally dig out a sifter half way through because of the look James is giving you. Sift it all into the bowl and mix until it forms a dough.

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Stick the bowl into the fridge for 20 min to cool, when you get it out again it should be easy to roll into small balls and put on a baking papered tray. I used the 20min to go to the 7/11 and procure chocolate, but you should use yours for preheating your oven t0 180 degrees Celsius 😀

It probably wasn’t actually 20min because my dough was still fairly soft. I was impatient to finish and sit down after having walked most of the day so I ignored the instructions 😀

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Aaaanyway poke your thumb into the middle of them so it forms a little well for the jam.

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Then spoon in some jam! This is my favorite one, it’s strawberry and rose petal.

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I decorated mine with some of those little sugar balls that I can never remember the name of.

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Finally, stick them in the oven for 15minutes or until they look cooked. Interestingly enough it wasn’t the lack of precise measuring that killed my cookies… it was my being distracted by watching Xmen First Class and forgetting they were in the oven hahaha!

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So mine were a little crispier than usual but still very delicious!! Be careful if you put in too much jam they will boil over. Also be VERY careful when you take them out because the jam will be liquidy and very hot so don’t burn yourself!

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Still very yummy but I’ve decided to leave these to James and perhaps retitle this section from Food Friday to “Violet Sucks At Baking… Mostly Out Of Laziness And Lack Of Allocating Enough Time”. Catchy yes? I can totally make a Violet Sucks At Baking icon 😉

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If you’re curious, they did actually taste the same as James’ version just a little browner 😉

 

 

Ultimate Strawberry Hot Chocolate For Movie Nights – Food Friday

I’ve been pretty obsessed with Pinterest these last few weeks, it’s a really fun way to find new ideas and collect things you want to do together. I’ve even got a board for recipes I want to try out now 😀 Woo motivation!

So one of the recipes I collected was an awesome looking strawberry hot chocolate thingy made from melted icecream. I fell in love with how adorable it looked but the ingredients seemed a bit rich for my taste. You can see the original photos and recipe here.

 

Anyway, we had a movie night the other day and marathoned awesomely terrible 90’s teen movies, what better to do than try my own version: lazy bunny strawberry hot chocolate ^_^

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What you need:

  • Fancy glass to put it in (seriously this is what makes it that much more awesome)
  • Strawberry milk, or strawberry Nesquick etc, something pink and milky 😀
  • Chocolate
  • Cream to whip (or whipped cream in a can for extra lazy points)
  • Something to make the bunny ears, I used thick shards of honey comb from a failed attempt to make crumbly honey comb
  • Sprinkles
Get your ingredients ready or if needed run to the 7/11 because you’re silly and you didn’t plan this ahead 😉
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Put the cream in a bowl and whip. If you have no clean bowls and your kitchen is totally dirty because you have done any washing up for days then tupperware will do nicely.
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I can’t believe I actually whipped my own cream, that’s like the only part of this entire recipe which isn’t lazy XD

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Break up some chocolate and microwave it 30 sec at a time until it’s all melty.

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Mix it well so it’s consistant and easy to pour.

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Get your fancy cup and dip the top in the melted chocolate.

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Use a spoon to eat the rest of the chocolate drip more of the chocolate inside the glass. This makes the drink super yummy and chocolatey 😀

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Pour some of the pink milk into a mug and microwave it for 30sec at a time, stirring until it’s hot. Be careful not to boil it! Fancy people would probably do this on a stove… but it’s hard to be fancy when you’re about to sit down and watch Clueless and the original version of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie… and Can’t Hardly Wait 😀 😀 😀

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Pur the hot pink milk into the glass, the chocolate should have set a bit by now so it won’t just run everywhere. If you were smart you would have realised that it’s hard to pour from a mug into the tiny mouth of a mini wine glass so you would have transferred the milk into a milk jug BEFORE spilling it all over the counter… apparently I’m not that clever.

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So now you’ve got something like this:

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Fill the top with whipped cream. Don’t over fill it or you’ll make an even bigger mess on the bench >_<

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Decoration time! Sprinkles first…

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Then ears out of failed honey comb, you could use shortbread or flakes or anything vaguely pointy.

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Use  a little bit of melted chocolate and a finger to draw the bunny’s eyes and nose. Mine looks kind of evil…

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He’s probably mad because I spilled half of the melted whipped cream all over the counter too >_< This cooking thing is messy business!

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Do you guys have special movie night food? We usually just pile as much junk food as possible on to the couch and go nuts 😀 I’m running out of 90’s comedies to watch though, do you guys have any recommendations?

 

Delicious Chocolate Spoon Gifts – Food Friday

Fooooood Friday 😀 And it’s time to use the chocolate left over from last week’s decoration ^_^ To do so I’m going to make little presents for my friends… ok maybe I’m just going to eat it but we’ll see!

This idea was another one from a Japanese magazine a bajillion years ago. Cute little disposable spoons filled with chocolate fudge or chocolate something, I did mine with chocolate ganache. And I did it the laziest way possible which makes it even more awesome 😉

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You need:

  • Chocolate
  • Microwave
  • Sprinkles/decorations/icing
  • Disposable spoons
  • Thickened cream

Step one, get chocolate.

Step two, try not to eat chocolate.

Step three, buy more chocolate.

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Break the chocolate into small pieces in a bowl.

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If you’re really into it you could use a double boiler system to melt the chocolate but like I said, I’m lazy. I used the microwave. Put it in for 15sec at a time until it’s around 2/3rds melted.

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Let the hot bowl melt it the rest of the way, this way you won’t burn it.

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To turn it to ganache you need thickened cream.

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Add a spoon full…

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Mix it very thoroughly, it looks pretty gross.

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Keep mixing until it gets much darker and really shiny. At this point you’re forgiven if you want to eat a few spoon fulls ;P

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Grab yourself some pretty spoons…

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And put the ganache in! If you want to be anal about it you could pipe it in but that just dirties something else.

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Once they’ve cooled down a bit you can decorate them. I used left overs from the last lot so I added a bunch of sprinkles.violetlebeauxdsc_0231_6981

And piped a heart and a V so it’s like saying “Love Violet”.

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Let them cool in the fridge and you’ve got some delicious spoons. That’s it! These are great to take to parties or as gifts etc.

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So now you just have to give them to your friend… yeah of course… definitely don’t just eat them all. I mean that would mean you have pretty much no self control huh? Oh… right.

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Yeah, sorry friends who I said would get these.

 

Decorated Chocolate – Food Friday

Foooood Friday! Today I show you my attempts at a yummy idea I saw in a Japanese magazine like 1 years ago XD Basically the idea was for people strapped for time who wanted to make presents for friends/whatever that were personalised you could take a block of chocolate and decorate the flat side. Easy done 😀

Decorating Chocolate

My attempts? Well baking is not my strong point but I’ll be damned if I don’t give it a go XD

Decorating Chocolate

What you need:

  • Chocolate block
  • Icing powder
  • Water
  • Peppermint essence
  • Sprinkles
  • Mini marshmallows
  • Food colouring
  • Freezer bag
Decorating Chocolate
First make up some icing, you probably won’t need very much so just stick some icing powder into a bowl, measuring is for suckers 😉
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Add a little peppermint essence:
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I really wish these stupid bottles came with dropper tops, it’s quite hard to get the right amount out *_*
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Add a few drops of food colouring if you want.
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Mix together and if needed add a few drops of water at a time until it’s a consistency you can pipe.
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Mine was a bit too runny so watch out for that!
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Take a break and have a cup of tea because you’ve worked hard so far 😛

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Now you need to cut a piece of chocolate to use as the canvas. If you’re like me you probably cheaped out and bought the home brand chocolate so don’t expect too much quality-wise 😉

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Decide how much chocolate you will use based on how much you love the person you’re giving it to. I’m giving mine to James… this much?

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Hell no I’m not giving away that much chocolate! Realistic:

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I love him but I also love chocolate! Unrepentant!

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Pour the icing into a corner of the freezer bag.

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Snip a tiny corner off so it becomes a make shift piping bag… or you could just use a real one.

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Now pipe on a pretty design 😀 I wrote “James” and drew a heart… unfortunately I was a little over ambitious with the S so it looks more like “Jimmy”…

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…then it melted a bit so it looked more like Jsmnay.

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I piped around the outside too as a border.

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While the icing is still wet add sprinkles all over it.

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And brush off any extras.

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He loves little marshmallows so using some more icing like glue I made a border of them.

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Taadaa…

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And because it already looked pretty hilarious I added some more icing on top. I’m deleting all of the inappropriate comments James keeps trying to add in here about what it really looks like.

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So stick it in the fridge to set and add a cute bag!

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Present for you!

 

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Taaadaaaa! I love you Jsmnay! Even if sometimes I’m not sure why…

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-_-‘

So I’m sure if you were better at baking/decorating you would be able to draw something actually cute on there! And hopefully the person you give yours to won’t be silly enough to try and eat the cute bag. Happy Food Friday!

 

 

Fried Rice Recipe – Food Friday!

I’m totally going to make an adorable graphic of me in my chef’s outfit for these posts as soon as I dye my hair again 😀 Until now you guys have to put up with…. a text stick figure with kind of a chef hat… just pretend it’s me ok?

….M /O\ —-/\—-? .. /     \ . ——- .. ||

Ok it looks more like a crown than a chef’s hat… also the question mark is totally a wooden spoon… just use your imagination ok?

Fried rice is my favorite comfort food and seeing as the weather has been so chilly lately I like nothing more than curling up on the couch with an episode of Buffy, a bowl of fried rice, a cup of tea and some knitting.

So as a completely random post, here’s my current favorite recipe!

What you need:

  • Onion (diced)
  • A couple of cups of old rice (I usually use 1 day old rice because I’m impatient)
  • Ham (diced)
  • Egg
  • Anything else in your cupbord, my favorite add ins are peas and leeks!
  • Oil
  • Soy sauce

Cut up all of the ingredients and  fry the onions in a little oil.

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Once they have cooked 80% add in the ham and any other bits you want like peas. If you want to add in leeks (which is damn delicious) you should do it along with the onion because they take around the same time to cook.Fried Rice Recipe

Mix them all together and allow to cook for a minute.

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Now make some room on the middle of the pan and crack in an egg. Stir it around with the spatula and scramble it. Keep stirring until it comes apart into little pieces.

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Add in some more oil and then the rice. Stir it all until it’s hot and add a little soy sauce.

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Serve and enjoy with a good movie 😀 And next time I will get James to take the photos for me so you can see how awkward I am in the kitchen! What are your favorite comfort foods? I need more midnight snack ideas!